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Post by greedo on Sept 19, 2020 7:42:11 GMT
Goragrad,
Good points but as hopefully I argued, these two house rules together (-1 for heavy infantry and near universal rear support) does not necessitate rear support. It just provides it as an option. As pointed out, having a longer line will allow you to overlap and outflank your opponent easily if they entirely double up, hopefully (independent play testing pending) the Samites could do fine in a long line but they would need to do something if that line gets broken so might rely on the flanks enveloping. Or perhaps they rely on 1-2 elements that are just deeper in their center. I agree it’s pretty abstract what “rear support” actually is so could still be realistic. That said we thought it up but I haven’t seen any tested battle reports of its success or failure.
As it stands, the rules make it so that rear support does nothing for you, so nobody does it. And Ps is next to useless in the front line so nobody does that either. But this makes it a bit more interesting to try stuff like this.
This is the house rules section, and the refrain “but Mr. Barker doesn’t want it” is getting tiresome, and really hobbles any creativity that people have in this channel. The last time we had a discussion like this was 6 months ago, and the final post was basically “we tried that and didn’t like it when doing DBA 3.0. Oh and Mr Barker would say no”. That shut down discussion for 4 months...4 MONTHS.
I recognize that we likely won’t get DBA 3.1 let alone 4, but the simplicity of DBA really lends itself to house rules, and this is a creative outlet. Don’t like them? There are plenty of other channels to play DBA RAW. There should be a rule here that if you’re going to say “this shouldn’t be so” then you have to come up with a better solution.
... late night rant over.
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Post by stevie on Sept 19, 2020 8:36:43 GMT
Concerning having the Triarii in the front line “Against slashing weapons such as the Celtic sword the legionary would shelter under his shield and stab
upwards with his own shorter sword. At one point it was thought that the answer to the long sword was
the thrusting spear, which could outreach the Gallic sword and parry its blows; thus in one battle in 223 BC
the spears of the Triarii were given to the front line troops, but the experiment was not repeated.”
(Source: Duncan Head’s “Armies of the Macedonian and Punic Wars”.
See also en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaius_Flaminius#First_consulship,_223_BC )Prior to the Punic Wars only the front line Hastatii fought with sword and pilum, while both the Principes and Triarii fought with spears. And in the closing stages of the battle of Zama in 202 BC (before the Roman mounted returned from their wild pursuit of the fleeing Carthaginian horse), Hannibal brought up his fresh veteran Italian reserves to extend his battleline, forcing Scipio to also commit his reserve Triarii in order to make his line match that of the Carthaginians.
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Post by goragrad on Sept 19, 2020 22:41:44 GMT
Obviously stevie great minds think alike - apparently that puts me on the level of Scipio!
However, 'rem ad Triarios redisse' was a declaration that the situation was desperate. Not that the triarii were used to blunt hard charging Gauls.
As I see it greedo, as noted by Bill on the previous page, the rear support rule attempts to force on the 12 element (or larger) game a tactical concept - i.e. the Roman doubling up of centuries to meet Gallic or Germanic assaults.
And again, nerfing the heavies to improve the performance of some lights (actually mediums) is overly broad. Specific troops labeled as AX are underrated, but not the vast majority.
In 'resorting to authority' by noting Joe Collins' comment on rear support, the intent was more to point out that the concept of rear support was not new and was discarded rather than an innovation.
Personally I would perform the unthinkable (as medieval thomas has done on D3H2) of creating 2 new troop types - MI with a with CVs of 4 against heavies, 3 vs lights, and 3 against mounted and a MX type with a CV of 3 against foot and 3 (or 4) against mounted and not swept by CV or LH with side support against foot from SP or BD as well as other MX. The first would be the hypspists, Roman aux, and other AX while the second would replace the current 8BW double element.
Seems to be a more elegant solution that the blanket reduction of heavy infantry CVs and addition of universal rear support.
But those would be my house rules...
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Post by greedo on Sept 20, 2020 0:16:34 GMT
It is weird that there is not concept of “medium” infantry in DBA isn't it? My personal favorite would be a compromise to make a bit more of a difference between fast and heavy troops 3Ax would remain as what fast Ax is, but 4Ax would become a separate troop type with higher CV but suffering a little in rough terrain (-1 rather than -2).
The doubling of up of units I think is a bit over the top in 12 element games but would work really well in 24 elements games. But it does give the general the hoplite challenge of going broad or deep And the challenge of matching the opposing line or anchoring your line to terrain. Outside of Greek and Romans times, I’m less sure if it would mess things up too much.
Either way, I apologize to everyone here for last nights rant.
My fear is that there is an abject fear to evolve it (for various reasons) or to change Mr. Barker’s rules. Because of that, the game will die when it’s author and core players eventually themselves pass on. Then again, I also don’t want another 2.2+ debate, which seemed so... nasty and turned many of us off for several years.
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Post by stevie on Sept 20, 2020 8:20:41 GMT
Obviously stevie great minds think alike - apparently that puts me on the level of Scipio! Only if you can’t control your mounted and they all go haring off in wild pursuits that takes hours to return Goragrad  ...something else that happened quite frequently historically, even to Cataphracts as the battle of Magnesia in 190 BC shows, yet DBA says Cv, LH, and 4Kn never pursue. (I am working on a house rule to simulate this, but still searching for a simple mechanism)
We all have our preferences when it comes to new ideas and fresh ways of doing things. What some people like others may hate, sometimes for no other reason than “Phil Barker never thought of it”. And that DBA 2.2+ split that Greedo reminds us of only came about because certain people were unwilling to compromise and wanted everybody to play by their way. Fortunately my friends and I don’t suffer from this. Providing my little circle of DBA players are happy with a particular house rule, we don’t care if other players on the other side of the world (whom we are never likely to meet) adopt it or not. Your suggestion of creating 2 new troop types - MI with a with a CF of 4 against heavies, 3 vs lights, and 3 against mounted and a MX type with a CF of 3 against foot and 3 (or 4) against mounted and not swept by Cv or LH with side support against foot from Sp or Bd as well as other MX would work...but it does seem a little complicated, and only addresses a single problem, that of making the DBA Ax class more durable and useful. I like Shrimplyamazing’s ‘universal rear support’ because it fixes a multitude of issues, all with one simple mechanism:- * it makes the Romans deploy historically (if you accept that columns = multiple lines). * it makes the Hoplites deploy historically (in columns rather than having a separate line). * it improves the Ax classes (by giving all foot a +1, and by giving the heavy foot a -1). * it improves the Bow classes (by giving all foot a +1, and by giving the heavy foot a -1). * it makes breakthroughs in the centre more likely (more chances of doubling heavy foot). * it stops Pk columns from always being outflanked (enemies must decide: depth or width). * it allows Ps and missile troops to ‘shoot overhead’ (not at range, but only in close combat). ...last of all, because of the things mentioned above, it ‘looks’ and ‘feels’ right on the table. To have individual fixes for each of these items is possible...but would be awfully complicated. Still, the proof is in the pudding as they say. Give it a playtest and see what you think.  |
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Post by stevie on Sept 22, 2020 17:39:33 GMT
A special note for Shrimplyamazing:-
Blade combat factor is reduced to 4 against foot (so it’s the same as when shot at),
but Spears combat factor is also reduced to 3 (making them the same as Pk, Ax, and
Wb when shot at).
This means that three shooters ganging up on Blades will be CF 2 v CF 4-2, resulting
in 4 chances out of 36 (11%) of being doubled, but Spears in the same situation will
be CF 2 v CF 3-2, which has 9 chances out of 36 (25%) of being doubled and destroyed.
I suggest adding the following words to the "Flank Support" section on page 11 in order
to keep the shooting combat factors and effects exactly the same as they are now:-
“Spears add +1 if supported by Spears or Solid Blades (even if shot at), while
Solid Bows add +1 if supported by Solid Blades in close combat only.”
This does mean that Spears will be more vulnerable to shooting if they lose their side-support,
but that just reflects their shield-wall becoming disrupted and less effective when shot at.
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Post by greedo on Sept 22, 2020 22:43:27 GMT
Interesting, and perhaps for another house rule, but what do lone spear elements do? Are “self side supporting” or are there just not enough of them? Why not just make spears cv vs shooting 4?
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Post by snowcat on Sept 22, 2020 23:03:20 GMT
A special note for Shrimplyamazing:- Blade combat factor is reduced to 4 against foot (so it’s the same as when shot at), but Spears combat factor is also reduced to 3 (making them the same as Pk, Ax, and Wb when shot at). This means that three shooters ganging up on Blades will be CF 2 v CF 4-2, resulting in 4 chances out of 36 (11%) of being doubled, but Spears in the same situation will be CF 2 v CF 3-2, which has 9 chances out of 36 (25%) of being doubled and destroyed. I suggest adding the following words to the "Flank Support" section on page 11 in order to keep the shooting combat factors and effects exactly the same as they are now:- “Spears add +1 if supported by Spears or Solid Blades (even if shot at), while Solid Bows add +1 if supported by Solid Blades in close combat only.” This does mean that Spears will be more vulnerable to shooting if they lose their side-support, but that just reflects their shield-wall becoming disrupted and less effective when shot at. Yes, I'd assumed this was already in, as we discussed it on pg 3. Nice catch. |
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Post by ammianus on Sept 29, 2020 18:48:16 GMT
Thanks everyone for your thoughts on this.
Certainly should make my next Punic-Polybian set to more interesting!
Cheers,
A
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Post by greedo on Oct 2, 2020 14:51:10 GMT
I had a question about why Mr. Barker explicitly didn’t want rear support in DBA 3.0. I’ve heard that a couple of times and was interested in his thought process. Is it that he felt DBA was too far zoomed out or was there another reason?
I still like the universal rear support and lower heavy infantry factor but want to make sure I wasn’t missing anything.
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Post by lkmjbc on Oct 2, 2020 16:26:26 GMT
I had a question about why Mr. Barker explicitly didn’t want rear support in DBA 3.0. I’ve heard that a couple of times and was interested in his thought process. Is it that he felt DBA was too far zoomed out or was there another reason? I still like the universal rear support and lower heavy infantry factor but want to make sure I wasn’t missing anything. To the best of my memory... and all this was some time ago now....
Phil was unhappy with many of the geometries of 2.2. The major tournament players were using the rules and the odd formations they allowed to win tournaments. Yes, I am guilty of that. He was also unhappy with look of the troops using these odd formations on the board. DBA 3, using its nominal ground scale (though it is smaller than 2.2!) exaggerates heavily the depth of formations. Phil therefore tried to get rid of all rear support in DBA 3.
Yes, we discussed DBE Pike at length. This ended up not working due to the need to rework and play test hundreds of Pike based armies. We removed rear support for Warband and moved rear support for Spear to side support. This created huge issues with Warband armies, so Warband rear support was retained (we tried lots of different things on this one.) Spear side support was retained and DBE Spear was added to model the Greek deep formations.
We removed Ps rear support to get rid of the stupid "DeathStar" formation used extensively in 2.2.
Finally, later in play testing Phil added rear support for Lh to beef them up and model some of their deeper shooting/fighting formations.
So Greedo, there you go!
Joe Collins
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Post by greedo on Oct 2, 2020 18:18:34 GMT
This is really helpful Joe. Thanks! Yeah base depth is certainly exaggerated but our little 15mm figs are Collossus on the ground scale Always a challenge with fig scale, ground scale in wargames... This is furthering my thinking that the rear support would work very well in bbdba since with 12 elements things might get a bit crunched up. |
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Post by greedo on Oct 2, 2020 22:45:58 GMT
Another quick question: what is the “Death Star” formation?
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Post by lkmjbc on Oct 2, 2020 23:07:27 GMT
Another quick question: what is the “Death Star” formation? . Double deep spear with Psiloi in the rear. Joe Collins |
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Post by shrimplyamazing on Oct 3, 2020 1:55:09 GMT
Another quick question: what is the “Death Star” formation? . Double deep spear with Psiloi in the rear. Joe Collins Wait so you could rear support two deep? For +2? |
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...something else that happened quite frequently historically, 
